One Ice Cream at a Time
by The Peverells
Summary: Padma and Parvati Patil want to change the world . . . with ice cream.


They knew it surprised everybody when they decided to reopen Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. After all, they were smart and beautiful, and they were War Heroes. They could have had any job they wanted. But instead of trying for a high-paying Ministry career, they spent all their savings on repairing a destroyed shop that sold _ice cream_ , of all things.

Honestly, Padma and Parvati Patil were as surprised as anyone else when they decided to reopen the shop. The twins had expected the same as everyone else – that they would end up in prosperous Ministry careers. Their status as members of Dumbledore's Army meant only that they could get whatever job they wanted.

But being members of the DA had changed them. They had joined simply to pass their OWLs, but it had become more than that. When Voldemort took over, they had to decide what they believed in, and whether they believed in it enough to fight and sacrifice for it. And what they believed in was a world where _everyone_ could live free and happy, no matter how they were born.

That didn't happen automatically when Voldemort died.

Of course, they could have used the same reasoning to get a job at the Ministry – rewriting all the old laws favoring pure-bloods, or making sure that all the remaining Death Eaters faced justice, or dealing out justice to those Death Eaters – all these jobs were offered to the Padma and Parvati after the War ended.

And they thought about it. _Of_ _course_ they did – they wanted to make the world a better place, and the Ministry initially seemed the best way to do that. But both of them wanted something more . . . _personal_. They didn't want to bring justice (although that was an admirable job) – they wanted to bring happiness. And, as Parvati often said, "Who can be happy without ice cream?"

They didn't come up with the idea immediately, naturally. It probably started the first time they went to Diagon Alley after the War. They saw how decimated Diagon Alley was – how many shops were destroyed, and how even now that the War was over, people walked around in groups, and nobody stopped to chat. There were no bright colors, and no noise – Diagon Alley was as silent as it had been during the height of the War – maybe even more quiet, since most of the beggars that had been there during the War were gone. And both of them wished that _someone_ would do _something_ to brighten Diagon Alley up again.

At the same time, they were receiving job offers from multiple places, all wanting members of Dumbledore's Army to work for them. But none of those jobs stuck out to either Parvati or Padma as something they'd want to do. Obviously they'd have to get a job sometime soon – they needed money to live comfortably, after all, and neither of them was willing to become a housewife, even if they _were_ ready for marriage (which they weren't).

On top of that, they were noticing more and more how, while the Wizarding World was getting safer and safer, people still weren't _happy_. Of course, everyone had lost someone in the War, and that grief wasn't going to go away anytime soon (if at all). But when a laugh was as foreign a sound as a scream, something was wrong. People _wanted_ to move on, and they were trying to, but they had forgotten how to be _happy_.

About eight months after the end of the War, Padma and Parvati met up with Lavender Brown, who had a rare day off from her job as an Auror. They walked down Diagon Alley, chatting about nothing in particular, when they passed what used to be Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Lavender said something about how it was a pity that nobody had fixed it up yet, and Padma and Parvati _looked_ at each other, mouths open, as they realized that this . . . _This_ was the job they wanted.

Lavender, of course, thought they were crazy. (At first. Later, she would tell anyone who would listen that it had been _her_ that had given them the idea in the first place.) "But where are you going to get the money to fix it up?" she would ask. And then, "You can't use your _savings_ for this! What if it fails!? Businesses fail all the time, you know – it's more difficult to run a business than you think!"

Then, of course, there were the objections from their parents: "But you got such good grades! You could have any job you want – why would you choose this?!"

But Padma and Parvati were War Heroes, and they refused to give up. And they didn't have to do it all themselves – their friends, once they heard what Padma and Parvati were doing, helped however they could, with money or time, or food, when the twins were too busy to remember to eat. Lavender may not have been convinced that their idea would work, but she helped more than anyone else did to make sure that the ice cream parlour would be a success.

When rebuilding, Padma and Parvati remembered everything they had wished for Diagon Alley to have and put as much of it as they could in their ice cream parlour: bright colors, vivid smells, and loud, cheerful music, not to mention exciting flavors of ice cream: Banshee Banana caused whoever ate it to scream every time they tried to say something, and the texture of Slimy Strawberry was strangely similar to Billiwig sting slime.

And it worked. On the day of their Grand Opening (May 2, the one-year anniversary of the end of the War), people streamed into the shop, and children's laughter echoed throughout Diagon Alley.

The adults were still subdued, but it was still the early days, and it was the anniversary of _so many_ _deaths_. The children were cheerful as if nothing had happened a year ago, but the adults did not forget so quickly.

But Padma and Parvati Patil vowed to change that. They would hand out ice creams, and gradually people would start to smile, and then to laugh, again. The last dregs of Voldemort's terror would disappear, and the Wizarding World would heal. It might be a slow process, but it would happen – one ice cream at a time.


End file.
